Issue 6, 2022 (Total Issue 140) | Marxism Research Network

Deeply Studying and Implementing the Spirit of the 20th National Congress of the CPC — Secretariat of the Chinese Atheism Society ^[1]
Atheistic Thought and Its Illuminations in the "Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan" — Liu Fujun ^[2]
Evolution and the Development and Dissemination of Marxist Atheism — Han Jingyi, Xu Baojun, Fan Yangcheng
A Study on the Impact of Rural Elites "Burning the First Incense" on the Construction of Rural Spiritual Civilization — Yan Hongguo ^[3]
Refuting the "Plagiarism Thesis" of McLellan and Rosen — Hao Wenli ^[4]
Rethinking the Critique of Religion in Marx and Bauer — Zhang Man ^[5]
The Triple Basis and Practical Logic for the Principle that Religious Activities Must Not Interfere with Social Life — Yang Yansheng, Qian Hanfei
The Development and Inheritance of Traditional Atheism by Contemporary Western New Atheism — Chen Weihua
From Deism to Militant Atheism: The Evolution of Modern Western Atheism — Zhang Heng
The Unified Way of Physical Body and Spiritual Breath: The Atheistic Thought of Wang Tingxiang — Niu Wei ^[6]
Wang Fuzi's Atheistic Interpretation of Neo-Confucian Concepts — Gao Guipeng ^[7]
Seeking a Fusion of Horizons Based on Human Conscience — Huang Chao, Liu Chang ^[8]

Back Cover: The Abrupt Decline of Religion Author: Ronald Inglehart, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Michigan and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Notes

↩ [1] 党的二十大 (Dǎng de Èrshí Dà): Referring to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China held in October 2022, which emphasized the "Two Establishments" and the continuation of "Chinese-path modernization" under the New Era.

↩ [2] 《湖南农民运动考察报告》 (Húnán Nóngmín Yùndòng Kǎochá Bàogào): A seminal 1927 work by Mao Zedong. In the context of atheism, it is often cited for Mao’s analysis of the "four authorities" (social, clan, religious, and masculine) that bound the Chinese peasantry, arguing that the overthrow of the gods would follow the overthrow of the landlord class.

↩ [3] 烧头香 (shāo tóuxiāng): Literally "burning the first incense," a folk religious practice of being the first to offer incense at a temple during festivals to ensure good fortune. In modern Chinese sociological discourse, "rural elites" (乡村能人) participating in such acts is studied as a challenge to "spiritual civilization" (精神文明), which refers to the socialist development of morality, science, and Marxist ideology.

↩ [4] 麦克莱伦 (Màikèláilún) and 罗森 (Luósēn): David McLellan and Zvi Rosen. This likely refers to the academic debate regarding the extent of Marx's originality versus his debt to the Young Hegelians, specifically accusations that Marx "plagiarized" or insufficiently credited Bruno Bauer in his early works like On the Jewish Question.

↩ [5] 鲍威尔 (Bàowěi’ěr): Bruno Bauer (1809–1882), a Young Hegelian and former mentor to Marx. In Chinese Marxist scholarship, the evolution from Bauer’s "criticism of religion" to Marx’s "criticism of politics" is a central theme in tracing the development of historical materialism.

↩ [6] 王廷相 (Wáng Tíngxiàng): A Ming Dynasty philosopher (1474–1544) of the "School of Qi." He is valued in Chinese Marxist historiography for his proto-materialist views, arguing that "breath/vital energy" (qi) is the primary substance and rejecting superstitious belief in ghosts and spirits.

↩ [7] 王夫之 (Wáng Fūzhī): A late Ming, early Qing Dynasty philosopher (1619–1692) also known as Wang Chuanshan. Chinese scholars frequently interpret his critiques of "Principle" (li) and his emphasis on "Material Force" (qi) as a precursor to materialist dialectics.

↩ [8] 视域融合 (shìyù rónghé): This is the Chinese translation of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutic concept Horizontverschmelzung (Fusion of Horizons), here applied to the dialogue between believers and non-believers or different ideological traditions.